40 and Fabulous Birthday Cake

One of my colleagues K, turned 40 recently. At her birthday drinks we had a big love in which went along the lines of ‘I think you’re great’, ‘No I think you’re great’, ‘No you’re even greater, sure you can bake cakes & I couldn’t do that’, ‘ah now, anyone could bake a cake, I think you’re so great sure I’ll bake your birthday cake’. The next day the fear gripped me, what had I agreed to do? A big celebration cake for a big shindig? Jeepers! Herself loves anything Chanel (far from that, I was reared!) so I came up with a Chanel shoebox design with a shoe sitting atop. Inside was a moist carrot cake with fresh orange buttercream. It took all week to prepare, a lot of second thoughts and stress but I was delighted with the outcome. Did you know it takes an hour to grate a kilo of carrots by hand?

When K saw it she was delighted, muttered another few ‘I think you’re great’s!’ and off she went to the party location with it. She then called me to tell me she had dropped it into the hotel and the manager was raving about it, cue silence on the other end of the phone from me as I had only registered the word ‘dropped’.

Not to blow my own trumpet, but apparently Cecila Ahern had a party at the same hotel the weekend previous and my cake was nicer than hers. *High five* to me.